Sophomore Davin Evans

“I’ve Lived in New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont, and Massachusetts. I move a lot. See my parents never married. I haven’t seen my dad since I was 12 when my parents separated. I lived with my mom after that until this year when she left with my sister. I don’t know where they went. I live with my grandparents now. I want to go to college, I want to be successful, and I want to have a stable future, that stuff is important to me.”

Freshman Patrick Welsh

“I was born in the Boston area. I’ve basically lived in Hopkinton basically my whole life. But at the end of the third grade I lived in the Bahamas. My family had a boat, a pretty big one. My dad was in between jobs and our family friends were planning a trip to sail around the Bahamas for a few months. With my dad in between jobs it seemed like a good opportunity to do something like this so we went with them. We trailered the boat from Boston to West Palm Beach and then sailed from West Palm Beach to the Bahamas. My mom was a teacher so she homeschooled my siblings and I so we weren’t behind in school. We were on the boat for 5 months so I missed the beginning of fourth grade but I wasn’t behind. Its definitely a life experience that has stuck with me, my sister actually just wrote her college essay about it.”

Stefan Mbarak

“I came to the U.S 20 years ago, when I left Lebanon. I left because of the war. The war is still going on, it’s more political now, not about religion. I’m a christian but most of Lebanon is muslim. That’s part of the reason why I left. I have family in Lebanon I haven’t been back in 5 years though. I speak English, French and Arabic, French is useful sometimes. I got this job from a friend when I moved from Florida, I have family there too. I’m just trying to get by.”